The Livingston County Board of Commissioners heard from facility services, the register of deeds, public health, veterans’ services, administration, equalization, the county clerk and EMS.

Although no official actions were taken, informal budget discussions shed light on what each department is likely to formally request for next year.

Department budget requests are due Friday. Formal budget presentations will follow Aug. 24 and Sept. 8, and the county is expected to adopt a budget in October.

For example, facility services Director Chris Folts wants to budget for security cameras on multiple county buildings as well as card readers.

Folts suggested putting security cameras in doorways and pointed at parking lots. For example, cameras at the county courts would allow security officers to “watch and see what is coming,” Folts said.

He said they would cost around $250,000, at $50,000 a year for five years.

Other projects Folts brought up included parking lot improvements and the creation of landscaped “patio areas” where county employees could take breaks at work.

Veterans’ services Director Jon Waggoner said a part-time driver is needed to take veterans to things like medical appointments, funerals and court. Volunteer drivers do it now. There was some discussion about the possibility of utilizing the Livingston Essential Transportation Service for it.

Livingston County EMS Administrative Manager Kevin Wilkinson expects call volume to increase. He projected 22,000 requests for EMS service for this year, up from about 19,000 a couple of years ago. He does not expect it to decrease anytime soon.

“With all of the health care facilities that are being built in this county, they all would require our service at some point,” he said.

Wilkinson also discussed a Medicaid tax and predicted that it would result in “a wash” for Livingston County but said it would benefit other counties.

“For every Medicaid participant we have in 2016, we’ll pay a fee,” and then “the state will take that and translate that into matching dollars ... and we’ll be reimbursed,” he said.

Wilkinson said a county such as Livingston, which has “a low Medicaid population,” would probably break even.

Health department Director Diane McCormick said there will be cuts to vision screening and hearing screening services due to a new funding formula. She said requirements are the same, so some funds would need to be “shifted” around.

“To fund where we have gaps, we’re going to be proposing we use our fund balance and not request any more general fund dollars,” she said.

McCormick also brought up Project Lazarus, an opiate-prevention program, and mentioned a potential budget request to hire an in-house coordinator.

County Administrator Ken Hilton said contributing more to the retirement savings plan, the Municipal Employees’ Retirement System, is being discussed.

Later in the meeting, County Commissioner Donald Parker suggested upping the county’s contribution to MERS to 80 percent.

Hilton said a decrease in the state alcohol and convention tax of “about $850,000” would be “a significant hit to the programs that it had funded over the years,” he said.

One thing that Register of Deeds Sally Reynolds discussed at the meeting was getting a scanner large enough to scan plats, so “then we don’t have to have them sent out to get digitized,” she said.

County Clerk Margaret Dunleavy discussed concealed-pistol licenses and mentioned how the clerk’s office takes a net loss of $4.62 per license.

She also said she would like to set aside money for new voting systems.

Equalization Director Sue Bostwick said the department is trying to fill two positions, but she indicated it has been difficult.

Bostwick said “there seems to be something going on in the (tax) assessing field,” where people do not think to get into the field until they are older and then “it takes eight years, from start to finish,” to get the highest level of certifications.